One of life's most repeated maxims is that every culture has its own chicken soup. The adage should be that everyone has their own hoagie.

I mean hero. No, wait a minute. I mean grinder ... or was that sandwich a submarine?

Chris Hunt/AJC (ENLARGE)
Classic Cuban: Crusty bread, ham, roast pork and cheese are pressed like a starched pair of trousers in this gooey sandwich.
MIKKI K. HARRIS/AJC (ENLARGE)
Banh Mi Thit: Lee's Bakery serves the Vietnamese submarine on light, crusty bread, layered with liver pâté, head cheese, cucumbers and pickled daikon.
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[an error occurred while processing this directive] Related: • More on food and drink • Search ajc.com's recipes Global bites not far from home To get a taste of some great sandwiches, visit the following: • For banh mi thit: Lee's Bakery, 4005 Buford Highway, Atlanta, 404-728-1008 • For croque monsieur: Au Pied de Cochon, 3315 Peachtree Road N.E. (in the Intercontinental Hotel), Atlanta, 404-946-9070 • For Cuban sandwiches: Kool Korners Grocery, 349 14th St. N.W., Atlanta, 404-892-4424 or Papi's East Cuban Cuisine, 216 Ponce de Leon Ave., Atlanta, 404-607-1525 • For muffulettas: East 48th Street Market, 2462 Jett Ferry Road, Dunwoody, 770-392-1499 • For panini: Alon's Bakery and Market, 394 N. Highland Ave., Atlanta, 404-872-6000

Depending on where you live, the torpedo-roll sandwich stacked with a heap of whatever you like can go by many names. It may even have special, inherent ingredients that make it what it is. A muffuletta is not a muffuletta without olive salad. A Cuban sandwich just isn't the same if it's not pressed like a pair of well-starched trousers. Vietnamese banh mi thit is so much better when made on authentic Vietnamese bread.

Still, a dagwood by any other name would still be a dagwood. Here's a primer on the world's heroes (sandwiches, that is).

From Vietnam: Banh Mi Thit

These Vietnamese powerhouse po-boys are best if eaten on Vietnamese bread, which has a light texture and mystifyingly thin, crisp crust. These loaves look French, but they're not. The bread is made with rice flour as well as wheat and have a sticky, lean dough.

The colorful, jam-packed sandwiches are a popular street food in Vietnam.

Vietnamese bakeries in the area serve banh mi thit on small loaves shaped like a French batard (French loaves can be substituted, just keep the sandwich at six inches).

The fillings range from pulled or barbecued pork to cold cuts, all topped with pickled vegetables such as daikon and carrots, jalapeño peppers, cilantro and Vietnamese mayonnaise (soy mayonnaise laced with nuoc cham, a spicy mixture that's part sauce, part condiment). Some like to drench the finished sandwich in soy sauce.

Lee's Bakery on Buford Highway serves one of the best in the Atlanta area, always with a spread of liver pâté on one side of the roll, head cheese and ham (you can eat there, or buy the ingredients and take them home to create your own).

From France: Croque Monsieur

Few things go together as well as ham and cheese, a culinary fact figured out by the French a century ago, when grilled ham and cheese started showing up on Paris bistro menus (Proust liked them almost a much as he did madeleines).

But holy smokes, what a heart-attack-on-a-plate. And what a way to go. This ain't just ham and cheese, baby: First, it's not just slapped together with a little mustard (although James Beard purportedly served them that way), it's made with Gruyère cheese and butter.

The croque monsieur has many variations. Some cafes in France dip the sandwich in an egg batter before placing it on the griddle. Others grill the bread with butter before putting it together. In some places it's abhorrent not to have it served with mornay sauce gluing together the ham and cheese. Nowadays, a lot of bistros are serving the sandwich open-faced, covered in sauce. If it has an egg, it's called a "croque madame."

Grab a gooey version of this goody at Au Pied de Cochon in Buckhead.

From Cuba: Classic Cuban

A well-loved "loncheria" sub, the Cuban sandwich made its way to Florida via Cuban cigar manufacturers who moved to Key West in the late 1800s. Like the Vietnamese banh mi thit, it really isn't the same when not made with Cuban bread — a crispy-crusted lean dough that, according to some urban legends, gets its texture from letting it rise in a cold oven over a pan of boiling water before baking. Most soft Italian loaves make a good substitute.

Yet the truest ingredient in a Cuban sandwich isn't an ingredient at all: To be a real-deal Cuban, it needs to be pressed in a "plancha," a sandwich press that looks like it could steam your linen slacks. The heat and heaviness smash and steam the layers of ham, chopped pork, pickles and cheese together until they are an indiscernible mass of goo that tastes mighty good between two slices of crunchy, smushed bread. Versions vary, but most use butter and mustard as a means to moisten the ingredients. For a great Cuban, visit Kool Korners Grocery near the Georgia Tech campus or Papi's in Midtown.

From New Orleans: Muffuletta

Speaking of urban legends, this po-boy was invented at Central Grocery in New Orleans in 1906. The sandwich is made on a split round Italian loaf, then filled with an array of Italian cold cuts — such as salami and capicola — and provolone cheese.

The kicker that makes this bad boy do the bossa nova is olive salad — a concoction of green olives, pimentos, garlic, cocktail onions, capers, parsley, oregano, and vinaigrette, chopped and topped over the meats. Aficionados claim that it's the olive salad and soft Italian loaf that make this sandwich what it is.

For a great muffuletta in Atlanta, try the East 48th Street Market in Dunwoody.

From Italy: Panino

The panino made its way across the Atlantic with the rest of the renaissance of Italian food that arrived here in the '90s. In Italy, these soft, filled sandwiches are often called panino imbottito, which means "stuffed roll." The bread is usually soft and white, shaped in an oval or round. It can be filled with an array of meats and cheeses, mushrooms, eggplant, basil, tomatoes, sardines — whatever the person making it decides to use.

Panini were once mostly bar snacks to Italians, but like Americans, they now eat them as an inexpensive, quick lunch. Alon's Bakery in Virginia-Highland makes a mean warmed panino.

From Philly: Classic Hoagie

This is it, the quintessential American sandwich. Don't recognize it? It also goes by the name hero, grinder, torpedo and submarine. Hoagies were created by the Italian immigrant workers in and around Philadelphia in the early 1900s.

Other versions can be found anywhere along the Eastern seaboard above the Mason-Dixon Line.

They're made with capicola or ham, salami, provolone, lettuce, tomatoes, onions spices and peppers, with a drizzling of oil and vinegar.

There are about a dozen stories as to how the sandwich got the name hoagie, none of which can be historically verified. Linda Stradley, on her Web site "What's Cooking America" (www.whatscookingamerica.net),says the name may have come from Hog Island, an area of Philadelphia that was home to a shipyard during World War I. Over the years, lunch sandwiches the workers brought with them from home were slurred from "hoggie" into "hoagie."

Try Jersey Mike's Subs, located throughout the Atlanta area, for a good hoagie. Hero. I mean sub. Whatever, just eat.